Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin has justified the payment of ex-gratia to Members of Parliament.
He contended that the money is very important for the sustenance of the MPs after serving the country.
Addressing a public lecture at the University for Professional Studies, on Wednesday, Mr. Alban Bagbin said MPs do not benefit much from ex-gratia as the public perceives.
He explained that the money spent by Members of Parliament to campaign for their elections is three times more than the ex-gratia they receive.
“We are having these problems because there is some perception that ex-gratia is some huge money…You know that as MPs you don’t benefit from that ex-gratia, you don’t, because the money you spent to be elected to Parliament is thrice or four times what they give you as ex-gratia. No MP leaves Parliament better than the MP enters Parliament.
“Once an MP is elected, he must win the next election and so they sacrifice everything to satisfy the voters in the constituency so that they could win again. So at the end of the day when they lose the election, they have lost everything, they have invested everything in the election and they now have nothing,” he noted.